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Annie’s Stories

Happy Friday, Readers! Today Home Thoughts welcomes fellow Ohio author, Cindy Thomson. Cindy has a brand new book out from the Ellis Island Series. If you leave a comment for Cindy, or answer her question at the end of the blog, you’ll be entered in a drawing for a copy of this book. Drawing next Friday, 7-18. First, tell us something about Annie’s Stories:

The year is 1901, the literary sensation The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is taking New York City by storm, and everyone wonders where the next great book will come from. But to Annie Gallagher, stories are more than entertainment—they’re a sweet reminder of her storyteller father. After his death, Annie fled Ireland for the land of dreams, finding work at Hawkins House. But when a fellow boarder with something to hide is accused of misconduct and authorities threaten to shut down the boardinghouse, Annie fears she may lose her new friends, her housekeeping job . . . and her means of funding her dream: a memorial library to honor her father. Furthermore, the friendly postman shows a little too much interest in Annie—and in her father’s unpublished stories. In fact, he suspects these tales may hold a grand secret. Though the postman’s intentions seem pure, Annie wants to share her father’s stories on her own terms. Determined to prove herself, Annie must forge her own path to aid her friend and create the future she’s always envisioned . . . where dreams really do come true. 1) Tell us how you got the inspiration for Annie’s Stories.I knew I wanted to write a story about immigrants set at the turn of the twentieth century. When I looked to see what was new at that time, I discovered L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900. Knowing what an impact that tale made and is still making, I knew I wanted to include it. I imagined that immigrants to New York City at the time, especially ones like Annie who came from rural Ireland, would have related to Dorothy Gale who was transported from Kansas to the odd and strange land of Oz. So I decided my character would read the book throughout the course of the story, and that she would love stories as the Irish do.

Tell us about yourself:Cindy Thomson is a writer and an avid genealogy enthusiast. Her love of history and her Scots-Irish heritage have inspired much of her writing, including her new Ellis Island series. Cindy is also the author of Brigid of Ireland and Celtic Wisdom: Treasures from Ireland. She combined her love of history and baseball to co-author the biography Three Finger: The Mordecai Brown Story, which was a finalist for the Society for American Baseball Research’s Larry Ritter Book Award. In addition to books, Cindy has written on a regular basis for numerous online and print publications and is a mentor for the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild. She is also a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and the Historical Novel Society. Cindy and her husband have three grown sons and live in central Ohio. Visit her online at www.cindyswriting.com.

What are you working on now and when can we expect it? It’s difficult to promise something to readers at this point. But I am working on a third story set at Hawkins House. In addition I’m working on an idea for a novel that would alternate between the present and the past. The past is set in 1947 at Wrigley Field, and while it involves the Cubs, the main characters are not baseball players. In the present a young woman is learning about her grandfather’s past and the mysterious woman who for one summer made a huge impact on her grandfather and she’s trying to learn why. I know that’s vague, but I’m still working on it. What I can promise readers are the short stories that are mentioned in the novel Annie’s Stories, but don’t appear there. Those will be available to subscribers to my newsletter. You can sign up on my web site: www.cindyswriting.com